How to melt an FPGA
Recently I was asked this question by a reader: “Is it possible to make a design large enough to make the FPGA melt?”. I don’t know why you would want to melt an FPGA, but the idea is interesting so...
View ArticleJP Morgan applies FPGA to risk management
You might already know I’m interested in the application of FPGAs in the financial markets, a field that has been growing over the last few years. JP Morgan has been working on this over the last 3...
View ArticleList and comparison of FPGA companies
With the top two FPGA companies taking up 89% of the FPGA market, you can be forgiven for thinking there was no one else out there. Xilinx and Altera have done a good job of defending the duopoly but a...
View ArticleCode templates: Generate for loop
This is the first part of a series of posts I will write on various code structures and examples for HDL designs. Here I want to talk about the generate statement and particularly the for loop. Most...
View ArticleBitcoin mining with FPGAs
Recently, what looks to be the first open source FPGA bitcoin miner was released on GitHub. The code is based on the Terasic DE2-115 development board featuring the Altera Cyclone IV, however the...
View ArticleOutsourcing FPGA Design: Pros and cons
Here is a recent presentation I made on outsourcing FPGA design work. Outsourcing FPGA Design: Pros and cons View more presentations from jeffjohnsonau.
View ArticleFPGA Developer is now on GitHub!
Not long ago I discovered GitHub, the social coding website. Basically its a place where you can share your code and manage open source projects online. I think it’s mainly used by non-HDL programmers...
View ArticleFPGAs in High Frequency Trading
Back in 2009 I did a presentation on why companies needed to be using FPGAs in their high frequency trading: Why You Need FPGA In Your High-Frequency Trading Business View more presentations from...
View ArticleHow to read an NGC netlist file
For the occasions that you find yourself with a netlist file and you don’t know where it came from or what version it is, etc. this post is about how you can interpret the netlist file (ie. convert it...
View ArticleCode templates: Clock MUX
Let’s say we want to be able to switch dynamically between two (or more) clocks. In the Virtex FPGAs we have a primitive which allows us to do just this, it’s called the BUFGCTRL. The BUFGCTRL is a...
View ArticleDoing my own thing
I’ve left my full-time job to start a business in electronics consulting! It feels good to finally follow my dream. I’m asking my readers for help in choosing a company name, please vote! Take Our Poll
View ArticleOpsero Electronic Design
I’m now fully committed to consulting through my new company: Opsero Electronic Design. I’m offering FPGA design services including: HDL Programming IP core design EDK/ISE project design Design...
View ArticleNallatech Releases FPGA Boards for High Frequency Trading
I was looking around for FPGA based PCIe boards when I came across something interesting from Nallatech. They’ve created two OpenCL compatible PCIe boards designed especially for the finance market....
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Zynq-7000 ZC706 Evaluation Board
I just received the Zynq-7000 based ZC706 development board from a new client and I’m pretty excited to start working on it. This is the first time that I’ll be working on the Zynq FPGA, part of the...
View ArticleJTAG problems with the ZC706
I ran into a problem on the JTAG boundary scan and after hours of googling and probing with my oscilloscope, I finally came across a solution. Firstly I should say that if you are having a JTAG problem...
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Comparison of Zynq boards
If you’re interested in testing out the Zynq-7000 SoC from Xilinx there are now quite a few options available, so it comes down to a question of features vs price. Below I’ve listed the most important...
View ArticleComparison of 7 Series FPGA boards for PCIe
One of my most common customer requests is to speed up execution of a software application using FPGA hardware acceleration. If the application runs on a PC or server, you can achieve impressive...
View ArticleZynq-7000 HPBI Controller
Over the last few months I’ve been very busy thanks to the popularity of Xilinx’s Zynq SoC. Here’s the latest project I’ve been working on for Evans Analytical Group, a Zynq based controller for...
View ArticleModifying a BSP in Xilinx SDK
If ever you need to modify the BSP code in your Xilinx SDK project, keep two things in mind: Remember to re-build your application after the BSP has finished re-building. If you don’t re-build the...
View ArticleZynq and the trend towards ARM-FPGA architectures
Since the release of the Series 7 devices from Xilinx in 2011, one member of the family is clearly dominating the others in terms of popularity: the Zynq-7000 SoC. Did Xilinx put all their marketing...
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